


The Price if the Guilty

by Nuvakwahu



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:15:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26991253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nuvakwahu/pseuds/Nuvakwahu
Summary: Written while inspire by “The Price of the Guilty” comic by Kazimir29
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	The Price if the Guilty

The imposters belong to an alien race that has been watching humanity for a very long time. They know of the strife that has long plagued the race. Generations of hatred that would boil over, turning them against their friends, their neighbors. What were once border conflicts over resources would grow along with the human race into planet spanning wars of attrition where no thought was given before sending millions of their fittest in the prime of their youth to their deaths tearing away at each other... and often over such trivialties as who would even pretend to rule over whom. Imaginary lines drawn out on paper meant to represent the land. They had long infiltrated the human race, tracking their advances. Technologically, their pace was actually quite impressive. But culturally... it was concerning. They still fought among themselves, even as they reached as one towards the stars... they were still given to bouts of paranoia over inconveniences such as differing opinions. And when it was learned that a mission was to be launched towards their home world, the Imposters feared that these savage brutes who were so quick to judge each other over as minor a physiological difference as melanin content in the skin, they'd surely declare a holy war of sorts against something so different as the Imposters were.

And so a campaign was started to prevent the human race from ever encountering the Imposter homeworld, by feeding on human Paranoia. A large sector of space around the homeworld was drawn up, and any ship scheduled to pass through or near enough to detour it under emergency situations would have one or two imposters smuggled to join the crew... remaining dormant in the vents until that line was crossed, at which point they'd immediately eliminate and replace crewmembers who had been carefully observed to aid in infiltration. The Imposters would then work to kill the crews and destroy the vessels. The expectation was that known human superstitions would merge with these disappearances and in time, deter further missions near the homeworld.

And so the imposter stepped towards the last adult crewmember of the vessel. "One more to go" he thought to himself in disgust... not for the crewmate, or even the species of which the man was a part of... but for his own assigned task. From his hands dripped the blood not of the lowliest scum who would fight over the smallest quantities of coin, or of the dishonest authority figures feigning high morality and virtues as they reveled in their own power. But rather, these had been the best and brightest of the human race. Not those who would sweep aside the merest hints of opposition to the discovery of new resources, but those whose hearts would have skipped a beat at the opportunity to speak with one so different from themselves. His hands tightened around the grip of his knife... and then his eyes widened. He realized that perhaps... they weren't so different after all. We killed them because we believed they wouldn't understand, or accept what he and his people were. Where humans had drawn imaginary lines through vast deserts and across oceans to denote what belonged to whom and fought wars over them, his own people had drawn such lines in the emptiness of space and killed those who would cross them. The imposter's grip loosened on the handle of the knife. "It's them or us!" he heard his partner's voice in his head. His last words before being jettisoned out of the airlock... his habit of using the vents to move around unseen had been deduced by the ship's janitor of all people, having paid mind not just on who he could see on the cameras, but who he didn't see, even as the rest of the crew reported seeing him in very different places on the ship. After that, the Imposter had slipped into Security and put an end tot he vigilant cleaner... avenging his... no... the Imposter realized he had not killed him in pursuit of justice... he had done it to sate the anger in his heart... but he found that it brought no comfort... only greater strife in fact.

But he had a job to do. And he steeled himself... stepping forward resolutely in the dark Corridor, but he saw something odd. The last member of the crew wasn't alone. He had in fact gathered the little humans... the children of the rest of the crew, those who carried the genes of humanity's best and brightest bloodlines. They were huddled now in a group, terrified in the darkness. The only sound the screaming of the sirens over the imminent core breach. The sobering view made the Imposter realize... he had become the very thing he had been trained to destroy. Paranoid... angry... and violent.

"I... have changed" he thought. He looked now at the child peering over the crewmember's shoulder. There is no doubt the kid could see him silhouetted in the emergency lights. There was little time left if the escape pod was to be used. And so the Imposter stepped forth and reached out to the crewmate.

"Green... is that you... where's white?"

"I lost track of him on the way to the reactor... If I'm going to be entirely honest, I thought for a minute that YOU had gotten him... but... I see now you had your mind on the future, while the rest of us were stuck in the here and now." He had lied of course... white did go to the reactor to stop the meltdown... but now he won't be leaving there... ever..

"It's just... I thought if we weren't going to make it through this... we should at least comfort the little ones before the end you know."

The Imposter glanced at the tiny visors of all the children. "Come on... I discovered that not all the escape pods were sabotaged... someone hacked the system to make a working one look inoperable on diagnostics. Lets get you and the kids out of here."

And so he walked though the halls... quickly as time was running out, but not so fast as to tire or risk tripping the kids. They reached the pod that had been meant to be the extraction point for the Imposters if they had the luxury of still escaping after insuring the vessel's destruction. But now... it was a lifeboat for a future peace between the humans and his own race. Yes, they'll carry the pain of their parent's loss with them for the rest of their lives... but perhaps that man, who thought of others before himself, fighting not the physical enemy that stood before him, but the incorporeal menace of fear itself in his darkest hour, could guide them through his example. As he sealed the airlock to the escape pod behind the survivors, he leaned forward, pressing his helmet against the glass. A crack formed in his visor, where his tendrils would often slip out from. And then cracks formed in his calm visage. "Please don't let hatred transform them... as it did me." The cracks widened as green stepped back and slammed the jettison button. A loud hiss filled the corridor as the escape pod left the ship. Green stepped to a nearby window as he continued to take on his true form. "For the sake of both our people's futures."

He shut his eyes as something felt like it punched him from the back as his vision was filled by a blinding light, the window before him vaporized as the metal that constituted the outer hull of the ship contorted itself in twisted and shattered forms. An immense heat washed over him... and then darkness.


End file.
